


Baby, It's Cold Outside (The Solar System)

by flawedamythyst



Category: Marvel
Genre: Aliens, Babelfish Thor, Clint is a dumbass, Diplomacy, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Motherhen Bucky, Sharing Body Heat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-21 22:03:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22037677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: Bucky didn't realise how dumb Clint could be until he didn't bother wearing a coat on a visit to a frozen iceplanet.He also didn't realise how important it was to him to try and keep the moron from freezing his ass off. Well, it was a nice ass, after all.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 58
Kudos: 476
Collections: Winterhawk Bingo, Winterhawk Wonderland





	Baby, It's Cold Outside (The Solar System)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Bart0nclint, who prompted 'Clint is somehow always cold, so Bucky tries to keep him warm'.
> 
> Also covers my Bingo square of 'aliens'.
> 
> Thanks to CB for talking me through the initial idea and coming up with the title, and Nny for a super-speedy and helpful beta.

Bucky didn’t notice Clint’s latest dumbassery until they were on another planet and fifteen minutes into an alien civilisation’s welcoming ceremony, but he wasn’t going to beat himself up about it. Before that they’d been on a spaceship and, as much as he tried not to act like a nerd when Tony was around, that was just too damn cool for him not to be watching every second of awesome futuristic space shit. He was allowed to have been a bit distracted.

Landing on an alien planet was just as exciting, even if it was mostly just a frozen wasteland. The star lighting the landscape had a redder tinge than the sun, which cast everything into new colours and made it impossible to forget that they were _in fucking space!_

But then the diplomacy bullshit had started.

The welcoming ceremony was in the square outside the main government building and involved a whole bunch of long, dull speeches that Bucky didn’t bother listening to Thor translate. It meant his attention wandered enough to actually look at Clint and realise what he was seeing.

“Where the fuck’s your coat?” he hissed at him. 

Clint glanced at him and shrugged. “Didn’t bring one.”

Bucky stared at him. He was in his usual Hawkeye uniform, which meant his arms were completely bare and his chest was only covered by the one layer so that he was flexible enough to pull off the acrobatic moves that Bucky always loved to watch. He was also covered in goosebumps and clearly trying not to shiver too obviously.

“What the fuck?” he asked. “They told us this was a frozen planet!”

Clint just shrugged again, turning his eyes back to the bullshit going on in front of them as though he cared about Steve’s carefully worded speech thanking their hosts for allowing them to come. 

Bucky took a deep breath to suppress his frustration at just how dumb the guy was, layering it down over the deep-seated worry he wasn’t going to admit to, then glanced around. The aliens who they’d come to negotiate with were all standing in a semicircle around Steve and Tony while Thor stood to one side, translating between them. Clint and Bucky were only really there to bulk out the numbers of the delegation (and because Bucky refused to let Steve go into space and have all the fun without him) so they were standing at the back where no one was watching them.

Bucky unzipped the jacket he’d worn for this -because he wasn’t a moron- then took a careful step sideways to be closer to Clint. He shrugged the jacket off, then wrapped it around Clint’s shoulders, trying to keep the movement as subtle as possible so it didn’t look like they weren’t paying attention. It left him in only a t-shirt but as much as he didn’t much like the cold, it didn’t affect him like it had before Hydra had done whatever they’d done to him. He could put up with being a bit chilly if it meant Clint wasn’t actively freezing to death next to him.

Clint grabbed at the coat, pulling it tighter even as he let out a sigh of annoyance.

“I’m fine,” he muttered.

“You’re really not,” said Bucky. “Put the damn thing on.”

Clint sighed again, but put his arms through the sleeves and zipped it up. Bucky caught one of the aliens watching, one of the ones at the side who was probably just as superfluous as him and Clint; he gave them what he hoped would translate between cultures as a smile of sheer pleasure at being there. They needed these people on their side, after all.

****

Not long after that they were escorted inside the building, which was only a degree or two warmer than it had been outside. Bucky eyed the thick fur covering the aliens and figured that they hadn’t ever needed to invent central heating.

The prickle of cold ran across the skin of his arm, but it didn’t raise goosebumps or cause anything other than an unpleasant reminder of long nights of training in Siberia. His metal arm had its own interior heating system so he couldn’t feel the cold on that side at all. Clint, he could tell, was feeling it a lot more, even with Bucky’s jacket on. Damnit, how the hell hadn’t he learnt to dress appropriately for the weather at some point in his thirty-plus years of living? Was Bucky going to have to start throwing a coat at him whenever he left the Tower, like he remembered Steve’s mom doing to Steve when they were kids?

The aliens had set up some sort of reception where they all ate alien food, drank alien drinks, and tried not to wonder what was in any of it. Thor kept assuring them it was all safe to consume, but Bucky wasn’t sure he entirely trusted him to know what human digestive systems could and couldn’t tolerate. Or what they’d all be disturbed to find out they’d eaten, even if it didn’t do them any harm.

“We will start the negotiations this afternoon,” said Thor, listening as two aliens spoke at him in their weird, whispery voices. The aliens all seemed to keep in pairs, Bucky noticed, and figured that just meant he was blending in if he stayed next to Clint. His shoulders were still hunched over with cold but Bucky had run out of clothing to offer him without making things weird so he just let Clint pretend he was fine for now, at least until he could figure out a way to wrap him up in a blanket or something.

“How receptive do they seem?” asked Steve.

Thor shrugged. “They are keeping things very formal,” he said. “I don’t think they trust us yet.”

“We need to find a way to change that,” said Steve. “We need to make this deal.”

The aliens had a gadget that was the only reliable way to navigate the multi-verse and, after the last scientific fuck up by Mr Fantastic had been compounded by Kang the Conqueror’s unexpected arrival, they had to find a way to get to a very specific parallel dimension to rescue the Fantastic Four. They just needed to borrow the gadget long enough to be able to do so, but the aliens were notoriously wary about who they allowed to use it.

Which made sense, Bucky guessed, but was still annoying.

Frankly, if it had been up to him, he’d have been tempted to leave the Fantastic Four where they were. He was pretty sure they’d all have a quieter life that way, but it wasn’t really the ‘hero’ thing to do.

“We will persuade them of our need,” said Thor with complete confidence.

“And until then, we get to hang out and eat these cool pink things,” added Clint, who had shown no wariness about shovelling down all the strange alien nibbles he could get his hands on. “They’re great.”

Damnit, his teeth were chattering. Bucky glared at him. “Okay, seriously, why didn’t you wear a whole load more layers?"

“You didn’t,” Clint pointed out. “This isn’t exactly a thick jacket, and you just had a t-shirt underneath.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Supersoldier,” he reminded him. He pointed at Steve, “Also a supersoldier,” then at Tony, “wearing a self-heating metal suit,” and finally at Thor, “a fucking god. What the hell did you think would be keeping _you_ warm?”

Clint shrugged. “My smouldering sex appeal?”

Bucky groaned and put his head in his hand. “You’re a fucking moron,” he muttered.

“Oh, come on,” said Clint. “I just figured we were going for official uniforms to look impressive, and you know the best way for me to look impressive is to have my guns out.” He flexed his biceps. Even with Bucky’s jacket on, Bucky could see the shift and bulge of his muscles and he had to drag his eyes away. 

“Okay,” said Tony, “I’m with Grumpy Cat. You’re a moron.”

Clint just rolled his eyes. “It’s warm enough on the spaceship,” he said. “How long can this even take? I’ll warm up when we’re back onboard.” He grinned at Bucky and ran his hands down his chest, over Bucky’s jacket. “And until then, I’ve got this. I’m fine.”

Bucky met Steve’s eyes with a long-suffering look. “What am I going to do with this idiot?” 

Steve just smirked back and slapped his shoulder. “I bet you’ve got some plans,” he said and, damnit, why did he have to know Bucky so well?

A pair of the aliens came over and Thor announced it was time for the negotiations to begin, so the conversation was shelved as everyone headed off to the conference room.

Bucky trailed behind the others, watching the way Clint kept absently pulling the cuffs of Bucky’s jacket down as if expecting them to cover his hands. He thought about the way that, even though Clint was a big guy, he somehow always managed to find sweaters with sleeves long enough to hang down over his fingers.

Right now, his fingers looked pale and he kept opening and closing his hands as if trying to increase the blood flow. Seriously, how the hell did this catastrophe make it through daily life without accidentally killing himself?

And why the hell did Bucky find the whole thing so endearing? He’d just about been able to cope with having a crush on Clint when it had mostly been about staring at his biceps. Now it was turning into being charmed by his dumbass ways, it felt like he needed to find some way to dial it back.

They got left in an antechamber briefly while something was sorted out with the conference room and Bucky took his chance to step close to Clint with a scowl. “Give me your hands, moron.”

Clint held his hands out without comment and Bucky wrapped his own around them. He pressed Clint’s hands together and rubbed them vigorously, trying to drive warmth into them using friction.

“I’m gonna get you some mittens,” he muttered with as much threat in his voice as he could manage. “Really fucking ugly ones, knitted by some colourblind hipster. Neon orange and lime green.”

“Why don’t you just learn to knit and make them yourself?” asked Tony and, yep, he was clearly on the verge of laughing at both of them. Bucky let his scowl deepen and tried not to think about how nice Clint’s hands felt in his, large and callused. He could imagine feeling them in other places as well and, damnit, he was meant to be repressing this, not giving his fantasies more ammunition.

The door opened and a pair of aliens came in. They stopped dead when they saw Bucky trying to warm Clint’s hands, staring as if they’d never seen an idiot who didn’t understand thermodynamics before. Bucky dropped Clint’s hands and turned to look at them.

“Is it time to start, friends?” Thor asked them, and they fluttered their hands then guided them through the doors.

Clint nudged an elbow into Bucky’s side as they followed the others. “Hey,” he said quietly. “Thanks.”

Bucky just grunted and shoved his own hands, tingling with sensation, into his pants pockets.

****

The negotiations didn’t go well. The aliens clearly didn’t trust them, which was kinda fair given they didn’t know anything about them or Earth, but they didn’t trust Thor much either.

“Asgardians have not always had the greatest reputation,” said Thor sadly, as they all took a break to drink some faintly floral blue stuff and try to come up with a new plan.

“What can we offer them to gain their trust?” asked Steve.

Bucky had no idea how to gain anyone’s trust so he didn’t pay much attention to the responses. Instead, he focused on the way Clint was holding himself very, very still, and the way the pale lines of his lips were starting to tinge blue. Shit, he really was going to end up with hypothermia or something.

“You okay?” he asked.

Clint nodded, but doing so clearly meant he lost some of his control and a violent shiver ran through him.

Bucky reacted without thinking. “Come here,” he said, and pulled Clint into the tightest hug he could manage, running his hands over his back and up to the back of his neck to get him to press his face into Bucky’s shoulder. “Fuck, we need to get you back to the ship so you can warm up.”

“I’m fine,” muttered Clint, but the way he was crowding into Bucky’s warmth, pushing his hands up under his shirt to get to warm skin, said the exact opposite.

“We’ll go now,” said Bucky. “Steve and Tony can sort out the negotiations here without us, it’s not like we’re doing much. And if I let you freeze your ass off, Natasha’s going to gut me.”

Clint felt so right in his arms, solid and comforting. Bucky pulled him in closer and wondered what all that firm muscle would feel like pressing Bucky down into a mattress.

“He’s right, Clint,” said Steve in his ‘I am the leader, do as I say’ voice. “You two go back-”

He was interrupted by an overlapping chorus of alien voices and Bucky took his attention off Clint long enough to realise that half the alien delegation had come over to them and were wittering at Thor, waving their arms and gesturing at Bucky and Clint.

Ah fuck, was hugging your teammate some kind of cultural taboo here?

Thor turned to them all with a beaming smile. “My friends! Excellent news!”

“They’ll give us the thing so we can go home already?” asked Bucky.

“No,” said Thor, “but they are far more open to making a deal, as long as you and Clint are the ones to make it.”

“What?” asked Clint, and he pushed out of Bucky’s grip to turn to look at Thor. Bucky tried not to mourn the loss and kept an arm wrapped around him, pulling him in to his side to make sure he was still getting some of Bucky’s body heat. “Why?”

“Because you are sharing warmth,” said Thor, as if that made any sense.

“Explain,” said Steve. “What the hell does that have to do with trust?”

“They do not trust me, or you two,” Thor said, gesturing at Steve and Tony, “because we are single.”

“Wait, what?” asked Tony. “Jesus Christ, if I’d known that I’d have got wedding rings for us all before we left Earth. I could fake being married to America’s ass, no sweat.”

“How the hell does being married make someone more trustworthy?” asked Bucky because, christ, _Pierce_ had been married. Most of those Hydra assholes had been.

Thor glanced at one of the aliens and asked, “What is the significance of being in a relationship for you?” and got a rapid-fire stream of speech in return. He nodded at the alien, then turned back to the others.

“Almost everyone here is in a committed partnership; they form those pairs when they are young adults and stay in them for the rest of their lives,” he explained. “Any adult who remains single is usually so because there is some reason that no one would want to form a pair with them. They are violent or deceitful, or known to take advantage of others.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Great, so they’re being a pain about making a deal because they think we’re antisocial losers. Do you think it would help if you told them it’s usually my partners screwing me over, not the other way round?”

“That doesn’t explain why they’d trust me and Clint,” Bucky pointed out. “We’re both single too.”

Thor beamed at him in a way that made Bucky tense up in anticipation. “They have seen you sharing warmth,” he said. “That is a very intimate act to them. Warmth is only exchanged between bonded pairs.”

“Huh,” said Tony, consideringly. “I guess that makes sense, given how goddamn cold it is here. Warmth is pretty much at a premium.”

“Wait,” said Clint, “hang on. Bucky lent me his jacket and gave me a hug, and now they think we’re married? For life?”

“Indeed,” said Thor. “They think you are in the early stages of a bond - what you would call the honeymoon phase. And therefore, they are prepared to trust you. You have been sharing so much warmth that they believe you are deeply committed to each other.”

Clint turned to give Bucky a grin. “I told you dressing like this was best for the mission.”

“You’re a moron,” said Bucky, but he couldn’t keep himself from pulling Clint in closer, not now he had the excuse of making sure the aliens thought they were a couple. “Let’s get this done so we can get you warm without having to share body heat, yeah?”

“Maybe I like sharing body heat,” said Clint, grinning at him with a bright spark of happiness in his eyes and, fuck, what the hell was Bucky meant to do with this guy?

****

The negotiations went much more smoothly after that, even if it was Bucky and Clint doing the talking, and trying not to make it too obvious that they were taking their cues from Tony and Steve.

All the seating was small, two-person sofas, which Bucky hadn’t really paid attention to before but probably should have. All the aliens were sitting in pairs, leaning in to each other or occasionally holding hands, which he figured meant that to really sell this thing with Clint he should press their bodies together, wrap an arm around Clint’s shoulders and pull him in close.

Plus, Clint was still freezing cold and desperately needed to share some of Bucky’s heat, so he definitely didn’t need to feel guilty about this whole thing, like he was taking advantage or something. All the touching was completely necessary.

Clint set his hand on Bucky’s knee and gave it a squeeze, then gently slid his fingers down to be trapped between his thighs. Bucky had to grit his teeth and keep his eyes focused very firmly on the alien who was currently speaking. Clint was just trying to avoid frostbite, it didn’t mean anything. And he shouldn’t want it to mean anything; this was just meant to be a tiny crush on the guy’s biceps, damnit.

“They say they will give us the device,” said Thor, and Bucky let out a sigh of relief, “but if we do not return it within five days, they will send their war fleet to Earth to lay waste to the whole planet.”

Bucky considered that, thinking about how long it would take to get back to Earth, rescue the Fantastic Four from whatever bullshit adventures in the other dimension they’d almost certainly got caught up in, then get back here. “Seven days,” he countered.

Steve let out a sigh. “We shouldn’t be agreeing to the ‘laying waste’ part at all,” he muttered.

“We need to give them something,” said Clint. “Besides, they’re just testing to see how important this is to us.” He gave the nearest alien a bland, guileless smile. “They’re not going to actually do it, they just want to see what the stakes are for us.”

Thor repeated Bucky’s offer and the aliens muttered to each other for a while, then sat back, fluttering their hands.

“They have agreed,” said Thor. “We may borrow their device for seven days.”

“Thank fuck,” said Clint, and collapsed completely into Bucky’s side. “I’m so cold, god damn.”

Bucky turned to wrap both his arms around him, pulling him in close and ignoring the way the aliens all looked at them like they were newborn puppies learning to walk. “Next time, you’re going to dress properly for the weather, right?”

“Sure,” muttered Clint, burrowing in closer to Bucky.

Bucky didn’t believe him for a second.

****

They got the device and hustled back to the spaceship, where Bucky set Clint up in the seat next to the hot air vent and wrapped him in every emergency blanket he could find as Tony prepared them for take-off.

“Oh my god, that’s so much better,” said Clint, clinging to the blankets. Bucky handed him a cup of coffee and he actually cooed at it, clutching it in both hands and giving Bucky a bright grin. “You’re the best, thanks man.”

Bucky managed a grin back. Now they were on their way home, he could feel the realisations he’d been putting off starting to sink in. Having an excuse to be so close to Clint, to hold his hands and put an arm around him, had really highlighted just how much Bucky wanted to be able to do that all the time. Fuck, it wasn’t just Clint’s biceps that Bucky was attracted to, it was all of him. In all his dumb, disaster-magnet glory.

“Okay, strap in for the jump!” announced Tony from the cockpit and Bucky slumped down into the nearest chair and snapped shut the safety belt.

Clint set his coffee down to do the same but his fingers were clearly still numb from the cold because he fumbled with the belt a couple of times without managing to do it up. Bucky sighed to himself, then leaned over and did it for him.

“Thanks,” said Clint, grinning at him. Bucky managed a smile back.

The jump hit and Bucky squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. Fuck, this was the worst bit of space-travel.

When they’d made it through, he opened his eyes to see Clint still looking at him.

“Okay, we’re back in the right solar system,” called Tony. “Fifty-seven minutes until we’re in Earth orbit.”

Clint blinked and looked away from Bucky, picking his coffee back up. Bucky could see he was still shivering slightly and pushed aside all his emotions to concentrate on that instead.

“We’ll get you into a hot bath when we get home,” he said. “Get you back to the right temperature.”

“You gonna join me in it?” asked Clint. “That’d warm me right up.” He glanced over at Bucky and gave him a wink.

Bucky just stared back because he was too close to his recent realisation to be able to deal with that the same way he usually dealt with Clint’s flirting, with an eye roll and a strong determination to ignore it.

Clint kept looking at him until Bucky winced and glanced away because he could feel himself giving far too much away. Fuck, he needed to get a grip on himself.

Clint took another sip of his coffee, then cleared his throat. “So, uh, do you want to know the real reason I wore this outfit rather than a warmer one?”

“Because you’re a moron,” said Bucky immediately, without having to think about it. And he was the idiot crushing on a moron. Fuck.

“Oh yeah,” agreed Clint. “Definitely. But not the kind of moron you think I am. Well, not entirely, I guess I didn’t look too closely at the ambient temperature on that planet or I would have worn a coat anyway, but, uh. Mostly, I wanted to have my arms on show because I like the way you look at them.”

Bucky’s head snapped up to stare at him. Clint was looking at him with wide eyes as if he wasn’t quite sure why he was saying this, but he kept going. 

“Which is fair enough, they’re damn good arms. Except, I always figured looking didn’t mean you actually wanted to _touch_ , except you’ve done a whole bunch of touching today and I just wanted you to know that if you wanted to do that again, without it being about incipient hypothermia, then, you know. I’d be okay with that.”

Bucky couldn’t seem to do anything other than just keep staring at him. He’d only just figured out how deep he was with this, he hadn’t even started to try and guess what Clint might want.

Apparently, what he wanted was Bucky. Holy shit.

Clint cleared his throat and shrugged a shoulder, knocking a blanket loose. “If you want,” he added. “If not, that’s totally cool, you know I’ll keep putting on a gun show whenever I get a chance so you can ogle my assets anyway, and we can just forget that this ever happened.”

It didn’t sound like he’d be cool with it though and it was that, more than anything, that made Bucky reach out and pull the blanket back up over his shoulder. “Let me take you out on a date,” he said, because he might as well give in all the way to this thing if it were happening. “Somewhere warm. We can borrow a quinjet and head for a beach somewhere.”

Clint grinned at him. “Yeah, that sounds good,” he said. “Sunshine and drinks with umbrellas in.”

Bucky took his hand, folding his fingers over Clint’s chilly ones. “You won’t need to wear a shirt at all,” he promised and, fuck, he really, really wanted that right now. Why the hell did they have to go and rescue the Fantastic Four again?

“Perfect,” said Clint, and squeezed back at Bucky’s hand. “Uh, I tend to get horribly sunburnt though, you might need to help me put sunblock on.”

“I can definitely do that,” said Bucky, thinking about getting his hands all over Clint’s skin when it wasn’t freezing cold. “I’ll take good care of you, sweetheart.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Baby It's Cold Outside (The Solar System)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23968393) by [Flowerparrish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flowerparrish/pseuds/Flowerparrish)
  * [[Podfic] Baby It's Cold Outside (The Solar System)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23990269) by [semperfiona_podfic (semperfiona)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/semperfiona/pseuds/semperfiona_podfic)




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